


in from the cold

by Skyepilot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Romance, Beard of Sorrow, Belonging, Coulson likes Daisy to give him permission to do things, Coulson loves Daisy, Cuddling & Snuggling, Daisy loves Coulson, Daisy shaving Coulson, Daisy the Compassionate, Daisy's sad childhood, Eating, F/M, Family, First Kiss, First Time, Friendship/Love, Healing, Resolved Sexual Tension, Running Away, Self Confidence Issues, Sexual Content, Solo Missions, Survivor Guilt, a little melancholy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-06 08:53:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5410655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/pseuds/Skyepilot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post 3x10 future fic.  Coulson runs and then stops.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in from the cold

“You’re wrong, admit it.”

“About what?” he asks, looking down at the still smoldering remains of the HYDRA base in the valley below.

“What you lost,” she answers, wiping the blood away from under her nose with her thumb, bending down and putting her fingers into the snow to wash it away.

Snow is falling on them now, and the wind is picking up.

He stares back at her as she turns away and starts walking.

 

#

He’s not sure he follows, but he’s following her back to the extraction point, through the snow in this desolate place.

“I’m not getting a signal,” she says, over the howling wind, looking down at the data feed in one of her gauntlets and the storm sky above.

“I saw a cabin about a mile back,” he yells back.

“While you were trying to infiltrate a HYDRA base on your own?”

“Did I forget to say thanks?” he answers, a bit standoffish.

She just huffs at him and gestures in a direction with her hand.

“Lead the way.”

 

#

They trudge on and find the cabin, tucked away against a hillside, meant to be hidden, it seems.

Their boots are covered in snow, and while they both prepared for the weather, it wasn’t anticipating a blizzard.

“Is this natural?” he asks her. 

After all, they’ve had to deal with a lot of unpredictable things today.

“I don’t think it’s Inhuman, if that’s what you mean,” she says, putting her glove against the door of the cabin as he watches the lock quickly vibrate apart.

They look at each other, and he pulls out the weapon he took off of one of the HYDRA guys, gives her a nod as she goes in first.

She holds her hand out in front of her and covers the whole cabin while he covers her back.

When it’s safe, they reinforce the front door with some of the available furniture and Coulson sets about looking for any environmental controls.

“Wood stove,” he says with a sigh.  “It’ll give us away if we light it.”

It looks fairly abandoned.  Probably once HYDRA moved into the neighborhood.

There aren’t any personal details.  No pictures, or decorations.

“Guess we wait it out?” he asks, watching her look down at her coms feed again.

“I’m getting nothing.  The storm’s interfering.”

“They didn’t plan an extraction,” he says, narrowing his eyes.

“No,” she answers, crossing her arms at his expression. “I didn’t ask for one.  This was a solo mission.”

“You came for me,” he says, eyes widening as the realization hits him.

“Does that surprise you?” she asks, rolling her eyes at him and walking to the kitchen, starting to open and shut doors.

“Let me,” he says, following after her in the near-dark, taking over and looking through the cabinets for food. “Rest.”

He knows she exerted herself using her powers back there.

“I’m not even SHIELD,” he says, pulling out some canned items he finds, looking through the drawers for a way to open them.

“This isn’t about SHIELD,” she says.

He hears her sitting on one of the chairs, the sound of her taking off her boots.

He doesn’t have a reply for that.

 

#

They sit and eat the cold, canned vegetables in silence, wrapped in the comforters that she found, with a few flickering candles between them.

“Ranch Beans are so gross when they’re cold,” he snips.

“Beggars,” she says, flicking her eyes up at him, and dipping her spoon into the can.

She puts it in her mouth and grimaces, sets the spoon down. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“You need to eat,” he says. “That was a big display back there.”

Yes, he sounds impressed.  He was.  He’s never seen her use her powers on that scale since…the forest around the Retreat was leveled.

“Controlled demolition,” she returns, picking up the spoon again and digging into green beans this time.

“This reminds me of the lunches at the orphanage, actually,” she goes on, taking a bite. “Sometimes if you were last in line, the green beans were already cold.”

“You were the last in line,” he says with a sad smile.

“It’s alright,” she answers, shivering a little. “There was an underground candy exchange. Like in prison, but we traded stuff we picked up in foster homes.”

“Candy? That’s terrible,” he says, shakes his head.

“I think I lived off of Fun Dip for at least a month, once.”

It clicks.  He knows this. “You came back the most.”

“Yeah, busted,” she shrugs, picking up the can of green beans to get to the bottom. “I started the underground candy exchange.”

“Why did we never talk about this?” he stares back at her, shaking his head, regretting.

“You never asked.”

“I never asked, because I thought you’d tell me if you wanted me to know,” he answers, a little defensively.

“Sounds about right,” she says, licking the spoon and putting it down on the table.

“The Ranch Beans are all yours.”

 

#

He’s watching her take off her gauntlets, slipping them down her arms like it’s a ritual now.

Picking up all the details. The things he’s missed about her.

They stayed in communication, around mission-related stuff.

He let the personal part of it fall to the side. For good reasons, supposedly.  He didn’t want to interfere in her life while he was busy chasing ghosts.

“What was I wrong about?” he asks her, as he turns away when he hears the zipper of her field suit, feels her weight against the mattress beside him.

The candles go out and he’s pretty sure she’s just used her powers again.

“You let me in. You believed in May. You trusted Trip. Mack and Bobbi.  Even Hunter,” she answers, and he can hear the rustle of her snuggling down into the bed, wrapping her comforter around her.

He keeps quiet.

“Okay, Hunter was iffy.  But, you let a lot of good people in.”

“I didn’t leave because of Ward,” he says, pulling the covers over him.

“I know.  You left because you lost yourself.  Ward is dead.  But we’re still here, and-”

“You’re all still alive,” he snaps, cutting her off.

She rustles the blanket and he can tell she’s turning away from him. Her head sinks against the old pillow and she sighs.

“Are you?”

 

#

Sometime, in the middle of the night, they decide to share warmth.

It’s too cold to keep sleeping apart.

 

#

He wakes up with the awareness of light all around.  Pressing in through the white of the down comforters tenting them.

Already he knows that how it will be breath-stealing cold the minute he takes them off of them, he can feel it creeping in around the edges.

But it’s so warm right now, he doesn’t want to give it up.  Some agent he is.

Still, they need to get up.

He presses his chin towards his chest and sees the top of her head resting there against shoulder.

“Daisy,” he says with a whisper, then clearing his throat to shake off the sleep in it.

She doesn’t answer, so he puts his hand on her arm circled around his middle and shakes her a little.

That gets him a sleepy groan, and almost nothing more, except she moves her leg higher and grips him tighter.

His hand is on her leg quickly, ready to push it down from where it’s tangled between his, against his morning erection.

Her head nods and he feels her lips brush across the hairs on his neck and his fingers tense almost involuntarily.

She pushes up even closer, making a tiny pleased noise when his hand slips under the edge of her thermal top, slides over the smooth skin of her back in a soft circle.

It’s too soft right now.  Everything.

“It’s cold,” she murmurs against his neck.

“I know.”

She blinks a few times, he can tell, because her eyelashes touch him.

“Keep me warm.  A little longer.”

No one’s going to come for them, he reminds himself.

Unless they ask.

 

#

“Where should we drop you?” she asks with a tilt of her head.

Her arm is up against the open door of the bunk, looking down at him wearing the SHIELD-issue sweats, sitting.

He’s warm and he’s been fed, showered, and it’s been good to see these people again.

Even if they look at him like he’s a bit of a ghost, they do it with smiles and hugs, like he still belongs here.

Standing up, he crosses the small space to her, as she watches him.

Doesn’t flinch when he reaches to her, or when he presses his thumb against her chin and touches the pads of his fingers to her face.

“I think I should stop running.”

There’s a part of himself that says he doesn’t deserve this.  It’s going to get all screwed up again.

He can’t listen to it anymore. Not when she’s looking at him like that.

It’s not who kissed who first, it’s the way it happens, and how burning and necessary it feels.

But she’s the one that moves him backwards into the room, as the door swishes shut behind them, turns him until he’s against the wall of the bulkhead.

He can feel the ship humming through him when she pushes his hands up along the wall, then leaves her arms raised, lets him pull the sweatshirt top off of her.

She’s bare underneath, just like she was in the cabin, when his hand had swept over her back.

He traces over the contours of her body, lovingly, like he’s memorizing everything, but touching her this much is burning him up too quickly, and so she ends it, grabbing his wrists and pulling him with her towards the small bed.

His sweatshirt is discarded, and she looks at his scar for only a moment, then pulls him down on top of her, mouth meeting his in the most hot-blooded way, her hands holding him against her like she can’t let go.

It’s when he bucks his hips up against hers that it’s too much and she’s sliding her hands down inside of his sweats, tugging his pants down as he toes out of them.

His fingers slide in between her thighs, and she gives him such a demanding kiss return.

He pushes one finger into her. Wet. Wet. Wet.

All of him shivers, and he’s a bit stunned. He makes room for her to slide her sweats off, their clothing all piled together on the floor.

Her hand grabs his cock, brings him back to her, strokes it impatiently. “I don’t have any condoms.”

“We’ll be fine, right?” he asks, and she nods in confirmation.

As he pushes into her, slow, making a pathetic sounding noise all the while, his eyes shut tight. Trying to keep some sort of control. 

He must seem so desperate right now. Needy.

“Hey.” She touches his face, and he looks at her. “It’s okay.”

She seems satisfied when he kisses her hard, pressing her down into the mattress, and she wraps her legs around him, asks him for it harder. He does.

And chases after her, remembering how he knows this. How to give her this, setting his hands on her waist to pull her towards, him, sliding his thumbs along the backs of her ankles, as he brings her legs up against his body.

When she comes, she’s calling after him, sliding her hands along his wrists possessively, until he’s lying against her, feeling her trace along the sweat on his back as he catches his breath.

She’s smiling at him, like she just got a taste of something, and wants more.  “Tired?”

“Are you kidding?” he asks, kissing her, feeling the shape of her breast filling out his palm.

Her leg snakes between his and she flips him towards the wall, maneuvering them until she’s finally on top.

“You’re not tired?” she asks again, holding his wrists together.

“Maybe a little,” he smirks.

 

#

“Let me,” she says, picking up the razor and sliding it slowly over his jawline.

He’s unpacked his things, back here at the Playground.

Now she’s in his space, sitting on the tiny sink in his room, wedged into his life still. Somehow.

God, he missed this.

“I’m a little sad to see it go,” she teases, as she shaves his beard away.  “You look a bit handsome when you’re a mess.”

“I’m still a mess,” he says, staring back at her, checking her response, all the while trying not to move his face too much.

“That’s okay,” she says, pausing for a moment, then resumes to shave him.  “You’re here.”

Her hand slides into the opening in his unbuttoned shirt, over the scar above his heart and rests there.

“Thank you,” he tells her, swallowing back the emotions he’s feeling.  Like something that was turned off is turned on again.

“You were right.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
